


Carry On

by sheron



Category: Agent Carter (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Crash Landing, Fandom Stocking 2016, Friendship, Gen, Head Injury, Hurt/Comfort, Post-Season/Series 02, Post-Season/Series Finale, Survival, Wilderness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-15
Updated: 2017-01-15
Packaged: 2018-09-16 17:22:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,416
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9282032
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sheron/pseuds/sheron
Summary: What's a little crash landing between friends?





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Sholio](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sholio/gifts).



"This is the last time I'm ever letting you pilot a plane, Carter."

"Letting me!" Peggy huffed.

Jack leaned his aching head against the wall behind him and closed his eyes. "I am, technically, still your boss."

"Technically," she said with emphasis.

"You just can't wait to get rid of me, can you?" he joked, even though the words held an uncomfortable measure of truth. 

Peggy didn't answer. She was fiddling with something in the front section of the small plane. An incongruous tree-branch of a maple tree was poking through the broken front window. The wall behind Jack creaked as he leaned his weight on it, giving an uncomfortable impression of giving way. The aircraft was in a pretty bad shape, with a crack down the back end of the plane. The tail had fallen off completely. The fact that the plane hadn't been torn apart during the landing was largely due to a magnificent tree-canopy that had cushioned their fall. In fact, other than Jack cracking his head badly on the front dashboard of the plane, they'd all escaped with minor scrapes and bumps.

He fully blamed Carter for the idea to pursue that communist spy all the way into Canadian airspace. Now they were in the middle of nowhere, with hardly any supplies, and nobody was looking for them under all those tall trees. As far as Jack was concerned, Canada made L.A. look pleasant.

"What's the progress on getting us out of here?" Jack asked, but the pounding in his skull obscured any answer Peggy may have given. It felt like someone was driving spiked boots into his skull. Jack rode out the cresting pain with eyes squeezed shut, then slowly reopened them to see that Carter was still there. She hadn't left him. She'd helped him put a bandage on his head earlier, among some bickering when Jack had insisted he didn't need one ― until he had stood up, felt badly nauseated and was forced to sit back down. He hated it when she was right. Especially when it meant that he was wrong.

"Carter?" he called. "How long before we stop our impromptu invasion of Canada?"

"It would go faster if you would come over here and help," she snapped impatiently. Then she looked up from whatever wires and buttons she was fiddling with, and her face softened. "I know you're not feeling well, but we need your help." A strand of her dark hair fell into her face and she blew it away, the way she often did.

"Alright, I guess." 

He knew another attempt at standing was going to be unpleasant, but even as he forced himself to his feet he had to admit he'd underestimated just how much. His insides rebelled, turned over and heaved. If he had anything left to throw up, he would have at that point. Even more than getting out of this wilderness, the only thing Jack truly wanted then was to curl up into a ball on the floor and hopefully pass out. By the time he made it to where Peggy was sitting with her sensitive equipment and slid into the cushioned seat next to her, she was gazing at him with concern.

"You're really in a bad way."

"Don't worry about me, Marge. Been in worse situations." Jack even tried to crack a smile. He felt very proud, even if it quickly turned into a grimace. "What do I do?"

"That radio switch, flip it on," Peggy suggested, just as Daniel limped in from the outside, shrugging his shoulders 'no' on finding anything useful outside as he went. Jack flipped the little metal switch, and winced as the static noise cut through his enormous headache. It was fine for her to order him about, then. He glanced at Daniel, who sat down nearby, observing them silently with knowing dark eyes. His stare seemed to linger on Jack's face, reading him effortlessly. Jack turned away.

The radio was hissing and buzzing, and spitting out other sharp noises ― the pain in Jack's head crescendoed. He lowered his forehead on his arm, positioned over the dashboard.

"Humpty Dumpty," Daniel said casually, out of nowhere.

The words rattled inside Jack's brain. "What?" he mumbled into his arm eventually, thinking he'd misheard. The act of speaking set off small explosions behind his closed eyelids, until it was just an unrelenting wave upon wave of pain, leaching all energy out of his limbs. All he could do was sit there and hope that Peggy and Daniel could fix this without him, because he was so done. The rusty cogs inside his skull had ground to a halt.

Whatever response Daniel was about to give was drowned out by a blipping from the plane's dashboard.

"―come in―" Peggy's voice echoed on the radio, static cutting in and out. "―Jack, come in―"

"You should probably get that," Peggy said calmly from his side, not looking away from her work.

With an effort, Jack lifted his head and stared at the hissing radio, listening to Peggy's voice call to him. He turned to look at the Peggy sitting calmly in the co-pilot seat. "Why are there two of you?" he said, or thought he said.

"Jack?" Peggy-on-the-radio yelped. "―is that― Thompson?"

"Yeah, it's me," Jack answered. Peggy-in-copilot-seat nodded her approval. "You're a hallucination," Jack told her, because he was concussed, not stupid.

In front of him, Peggy looked down, smiling a mysterious smile.

"What was―" The squawk from the radio-Peggy told him she was very unhappy to hear him say that. For a moment her voice cut through all the static. "Are you hurt?" And again radio noise cut in, and then there were other sounds, like more people talking in the background. Peggy came on the line again, "―ack, have to ― the emergency beacon ― we ― triangulate your location―"

"You did that earlier," Jack mumbled. He'd watched Peggy flip that switch, knowing its importance. Back when he hadn't been able to get up.

On the other hand, he considered as minutes dragged by, even as more squawking came across the radio, if this was a hallucination-Peggy, then maybe he had it wrong. He looked at the dashboard. If he was hallucinating, could he even trust what was happening? Maybe he could push the wrong button and set the plane on fire, or something. The stench of gasoline in the air felt real, but so did Peggy and Daniel. It all seemed like too much work for his poor aching head to think through. Was he even actually here? Maybe he was only imagining the crash landing and this was all an elaborate hoax his mind played on him. Still. He'd had serious hangovers before and he'd been doped up to the gills with opiates, but he had never hallucinated _Canada_. All this seemed a little unfair. 

"-do it, Jack," Peggy on the radio insisted, in a whip-crack of a tone.

"Alright, alright," he mumbled. "Hold your horses..."

"All the kings horses," Daniel added from the metal bench behind him. Jack ignored him.

He flipped another switch on the dashboard and the little red light next to the distress radio-beacon began to blink steadily. Jack wondered if he should go outside and send some flares up into the sky. On the other hand, the distance from his seat all the way to the cracked door of the plane looked too far. He'd probably pass out and split his head open. More. Best not risk it.

And why had he hallucinated them in the first place? Peggy looked at him from the co-pilot seat with a patient expression, like she was just waiting for him to figure that out.

Jack pondered it as he lowered his pounding head to his arm again. He didn't know how long he stayed like that.

At some point, there was a sound of propellers, boots on the ground, and other loud noises. Someone yanked the door of the plane off its hinges, making the whole frame shake, and as much as Jack wanted to remain still in the pilot seat with his head in his hands, he forced himself to look up, bleary-eyed.

"Well," Peggy said brightly from the doorway. She was dressed in a camo uniform, and she had a green leaf caught in her messy hair, but her smile was definitely real when she saw Jack lift his head. "This is the last time I'm ever letting you pilot a plane."

 

**Fin.**

**Author's Note:**

> The title is from the song "Carry On" by Fun. I hope you enjoyed the ficlet!  
> (Also fills my 'minor illness or injury' hc_bingo square).


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